


If I Had A Choice

by thesnadger



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Emotions, Internal Monologue, M/M, Post-MAG 181, Self-Doubt, references to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26782738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnadger/pseuds/thesnadger
Summary: Walking gives you a lot of time to think. Jon and Martin consider things after they leave Salesa's.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 32
Kudos: 158





	If I Had A Choice

The thing is, it’s not about what he deserves.

Does Jon deserve to die? It’s a meaningless question now, when death is an escape that few have the luxury of imagining. Death is far from the worst fate that he intimately Knows. Even so, that isn’t the point. Not really.

Would he die to put the world back as it was? That’s no choice at all. There’s still enough humanity in him to see that there is only one answer. But it isn’t about that either. Killing him wouldn’t fix things, and chasing pointless martyrdom through the apocalypse would only leave Martin to face this world alone.

He’s not looking for a hard choice to make, whatever anyone might think. It’s just that he’s not likely to have a choice.

Martin won’t leave him, not even for the peace and comfort of Salesa’s hideaway. That thought fills Jon with more things than he can name. Relief, fear, gratitude, fear, bafflement, fear, fear, fear, but love most of all. Martin won’t leave him, and so Jon can’t leave either. Can’t let the Eye pull him away. Can’t let Terminus catch him.

Not if he has a say in the matter. (He won’t have a say in the matter.)

_You really don’t deserve it._

He doesn’t, but it isn’t about that. It doesn’t matter if he deserves Martin or not. Is it even possible, really, to deserve the love of another person? Is it something that can be earned, purchased with a debt of kind acts or romantic words? No. It can only be a gift, and whatever his reasons Martin has given it to him. Martin loves him. It doesn’t matter if Jon deserves it. He has it and he's going to hold on to it.

Since when does anyone get what they deserve?

Martin deserves so many things that he will never have.

_We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it._

There was a time when Jon believed that he could save the world, when he threw himself into the search for answers, certain that if he could see the whole picture then he could understand it all. He ran into the Unknowing, stared at the Dark Sun, crawled into the Buried and carved a path through the Forsaken. He thought that he was preventing rituals, but all the while he was becoming the altar and the knife. It killed something in him, that realization. Whatever hubris, whatever sheer arrogance had made him believe he could save anybody, it was gone. Deep down, he doesn’t believe in a way back.

But he’s been wrong before. He hopes that he’s wrong now. It doesn’t come naturally anymore, hope, but he can try. Try to believe they can bring back a world that is more than just pain and fear. One that has comfort and safety, simple pleasures, peaceful mornings, dreamless nights.

He knows he can't live in that world.

He’s changed too much. He can’t be fixed. That is the reality of it.

Jon doesn’t deserve to be rewarded for bringing about the end. He didn’t deserve to be used by Elias. He doesn’t deserve Martin’s devotion. He doesn’t deserve to die. But it isn’t about what he deserves.

_They just get whatever hurts them the most._

Martin won’t leave him. If their desperate quest somehow does succeed and Jon is severed from the Eye, he knows Martin will be with him until the end. Jon can Know every word in every language but none of them name what he feels when he thinks about that.

There are worse fates, he thinks, than spending a week or two living somewhere with Martin while he slowly loses himself, grows tired and hazy until one day he drifts off and doesn’t come back. It might be peaceful.

(Despite everything, he doesn’t want to die. It isn’t about what he wants, either.)

It would be painful to watch, he knows. There is no way to spare Martin the pain of losing him. Even if Jon wanted to (he doesn’t) or could (he couldn’t) convince Martin to leave him, it would only make that pain come sharper and sooner. It will hurt him however it happens.

Jon hopes that he won’t be alone when it does.

Maybe Melanie will reach out after it’s all over - with Jon gone, even Georgie might be willing to speak to him. Basira, she’s already coping with her own loss. Perhaps they can help each other. Jon thinks that Martin will want someone to be there for just as much as he’ll need someone to be there for him.

Even if there is no one... Martin is strong, stronger than Jon had once imagined. He found his own way out of the fog this time. If he suffers, if he mourns, he’ll also heal. He’ll have room to move on in a world of gentle rains and quiet conversations and hot cups of tea.

Jon doesn’t Know this. He doesn’t Know any of it. It’s what he hopes.

What he knows is there is no place for him in that healed world.

What he knows is he is a monster that feeds on fear.

What he knows is Martin won’t leave him.

If this world can be fixed, he’ll do what it takes to fix it. If he can’t survive in that new world, then he’ll die in it. It’s not about punishment, or sacrifice, or fate, or about what he deserves.

This is what Jon can still hope for.

He hears Martin call out and glances back. He’s fallen behind again, or Jon’s been going too fast, lost in thought. Jon holds out a hand which Martin takes, visibly annoyed. He smiles apologetically, hoping Martin will smile back. He does, after a moment of suspense - tossing his head back and rolling his eyes.

“You keep that up, I’m going to start thinking you’re trying to ditch me,” he says.

Jon’s grip tightens. His voice is blazing.

“Never,” he says.

* * *

It’s not about what Martin wants. It never is.

But right now, he is where he wants to be. He meant what he said. It would have been nice to stay in Salesa’s home a little longer, but he’d rather be here with Jon than there with Annabelle. Besides, he couldn’t abandon everyone else, couldn’t leave the world to this hell. And obviously he isn’t leaving Jon.

_I mean, you could have..._

Martin had waited for it as they packed. He’d braced for it as they made their way to the front, holding Jon’s hand and steering him so that he didn’t stop walking or wander off. He knew Jon would point out the obvious eventually – that if he wanted to, Martin could stay behind.

When he finally did say it, hesitant and without much force, it was almost a relief.

_I_ _f you wanted to forget all of it, stay here and just... escape. I would understand._

The thing is, Martin doesn’t want to escape. That isn’t what he’s hoping for.

What would he even do if he stayed with Salesa? Sit around on fancy furniture looking at flowers while seven billion people continued on in agony? Spend a few years drinking before noon, then blow his brains out once the food’s gone? What kind of paradise is that?

No, it isn’t for him. Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to die there.

What Martin _really_ wants is to ask Jon if there’s a nearby nightmare domain where he can pick up a chainsaw or a flamethrower or two, then pop back _quickly_ to have one last chat with Annabelle. But that probably wouldn’t end as well in reality as it would in his head.

Martin isn’t an idiot, he knows nothing that Annabelle says is spoken in his interest or Jon’s. Anything she tells him is only her trying to get under his skin for her own ends. He knows this. He does. The trouble is, she’s good at it, and sometimes her words tug at his worries even if he doesn’t really believe them.

_Does he even need you at all?_

But she made a mistake there, because the one thing he knows is that Jon needs _someone._ Even now. _E_ _specially_ now. Maybe there are times when he can’t get all the way to “Jon needs _me_.” But he needs somebody, Martin has no doubts about that. If her game is to convince him otherwise, she’s going to lose.

He should expect someone like Annabelle to think that Jon doesn’t need him.

What does she know about what people need? She probably sees everyone as a tool she can use for whatever plans her spider puppet-masters are cooking up.

She wasn’t there with Jon in those first few days, when he was destroying himself with guilt. She wasn’t the one he clung to while he wept, who listened to him pour out his self-loathing and his dread, who held him when it seemed like he might shake apart.

She didn’t see the look on Jon’s face when Martin told him that he didn’t want to stay in the fog – that collapsing relief and barely-held back joy. Didn’t feel how tightly Jon clung to him as they made their way out of that house, one hand gripping his, the other around his arm, as if holding something precious that had been nearly ripped away.

She wouldn’t know or care about the small, fragile smiles that Martin can still coax from him, despite everything.

What does she know about what he needs?

Does she even have any friends that aren’t mind controlled into thinking they like her?

Has anyone ever told her she’s their reason for holding on?

_Just wanted to make you say it._

Now _that_ would be a thing to ask the next time she shows up. ‘Hey Annabelle, just curious, is there anyone who _actually_ cares about you?’ And she’d say something like ‘well Martin, are you sure that anyone has ever really cared about _you_?’ in that smug voice of hers. And then Jon would say that _he_ cared about Martin, that he _loved_ him, and then he’d blow her up with his Archivist vision.

Yeah. That wouldn’t end as well in reality as it did in his head either.

He was in love, and he was loved, and he wouldn’t forget that. He could believe that Jon _did_ need him.

But he still worried.

Because when was the last time Jon let himself have what he needed?

_Life's always more complicated than that, isn't it?_

If he put more stock in what Annabelle said, Martin might see Jon giving him these outs as trying to get rid of him. And he knows there’s something deep in him, something old and sore, that resonates with that. But that isn’t what he’s afraid of, not really. He’d have to ignore a great number of the things that Jon says and does to really believe that he doesn’t want Martin around.

What he worries is that Jon might be trying to give him up. Let him run away somewhere safe so that he won’t have to face what’s coming. Whatever it is he Sees.

He wanted to stay a little longer at Salesa’s, but it’s not about what he wants. Jon couldn’t stay, Martin couldn’t leave him, so Martin couldn’t stay either. Jon apologized, but it wasn’t like that – it wasn’t something Martin was giving up for him, he stayed with Jon for himself as well. And it’s not Jon’s fault that he can’t live without the -

Can’t live at that house. Not for long.

No. Nope. No, no, no, no. He isn’t going to give into despair about that. This world is huge, and weird, and terrible, and most of it doesn’t make sense except in the incomprehensible non-logic of dreams.

If a cracked camera can hide a bubble of peace in the apocalypse, there’s something that can be done for Jon. Martin is not going to let go of that possibility. He’s had a glimpse of the life they might have together, and he wants to have that in earnest.

But it’s never about what Martin wants.

“Hey!” He shouts at Jon, who’s beginning to shrink in the distance. “Slow down, huh?”

Jon turns rabbit-quick and startled. He smiles sheepishly as Martin approaches, holding out a hand for him to take.

Martin rolls his eyes as he grips it. “You keep that up, I’m going to start thinking you’re trying to ditch me.”

Jon stares at his words, and for a moment he squeezes Martin’s hand hard enough to hurt. He looks into Martin’s eyes and whispers _never._ And Martin swallows, and breathes, and breathes.

* * *

Two figures stand in a lifeless field, saying nothing. The same thought in both their minds.

If I had a choice, I would choose to be with you.

**Author's Note:**

> I GUESS I'm just gonna make a slightly morbid self-indulgent one-shot about how much Jon and Martin love each other after every episode now, gosh!!!


End file.
